Dying as Enemies, We Swore to Wake as Lovers

A haunting anti-war ballad about two enemy soldiers who meet on a scorched battlefield, lay down sword and shield, and swear to find each other again beyond banners, names and borders. Two soldiers meet at night on a broken, ash-stained plain where a red sword and a blackened shield leave neither of them a road back home. For years each was only a target and a name bred to be erased, until in the final hush of the fighting they memorize the eyes behind the flag. Their spears lie in pieces and rust, their wounds bleed together into one plot of ground that never asks whose blood it found, and they realize the hate was decreed and carved in bone while the fire they lit that night was theirs alone. Thinking of the mothers waiting at doors and the children whose mornings were emptied by war, they call their own justice by its true name, fear, and choose the same ground so they can die as friends and wake as lovers, asking only that the eyes do the finding next time. #AntiWar #Ballad #Soldiers #Peace